It was St. Patrick's Day 1997 and Tom Kutza's talk program on WISL hosted a very special guest for the holiday. His name was Joseph Shilpetski but on St. Patrick's Day he called himself Joseph John "The Polish Leprechaun" and he was live and very much in color in the WISL studios at Rock and Sunbury Streets in Shamokin.
According to a 1991 article in the Allentown Morning Call, Shilpetski was born in Centralia, PA and left the area in 1952 when the last of the mines closed. He ended up moving to Lancaster County looking for work, but Centralia remained very much a part of him.
In the article...

The Anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania has produced some of the finest athletes our country has known. In high school football, our schools are frequent winners of regional and state championships and nobody knew those teams and their coaches better than Bernie Romanoski.
No WISL Hall of Fame entry would be complete without a little background history. Bernie was born on August 25th 1922, was a 1941 graduate of Coal Township High School and was a lifelong resident of the Shamokin-Coal Township area. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and reached the rank of Sergeant. He served in both...

One of the things we love here at WISLRadioHistory.com is finding a long forgotten tape of WISL when it was live and local. Hearing the disc jockey banter, the voices of the callers, the subject matter and advertisers gives us an incredible look into not only how the radio station sounded, but also the community that it served. Today, however, we have a very special opportunity, the chance to actually watch WISL Radio in action!
The date was January 30th 1992 and Tom Kutza has a special guest on his daily talk show. On this program Tom welcomes Clarke Ingram, veteran radio personality to the WISL...

Shamokin Equipment is located at the corner of Sunbury and Shamokin streets and has served Shamokin for over 50 years. As the advertisement below states, they were a full service business equipment supplier in the early days. Most in Shamokin know the business for it's selection of home appliances and as a long time Frigidaire Dealer.
Presented here is a jingle created for Shamokin Equipment dated 1951. We recently stumbled across this acetate disc at an antique store in Lewisburg, PA. This is a great example of the early early sound of local radio at WISL. This jingle would have been...

Tom Kutza has always loved the Christmas season, and being on the air at WISL he had the opportunity to share with his listeners the sentimental side of the holiday. Each year you would be guaranteed to hear songs such as Johnny Cash's "The Christmas Guest", Kate Smith's "Happy Birthday, Dear Christ Child" and many others. There were also spoken word pieces such as John Facenda's reading of "The Nativity" and "The Story of Small One" but the Christmas tradition that was most dear to Kutza, came from his own heart; his own reading of "Annie and Willie's Prayer."
This poem was written by Sophia...

Growing up in the Shamokin and Mount Carmel area, it's likely that when you hear someone say "Letters To Santa" it brings a warm feeling to your heart. It may bring back memories of preparing your letter for Santa, probably with the help of your Mother or Father, and then either mailing it to WISL Radio (a.k.a. The North Pole) or going with Mom or Dad to drop it off at a local business, who would make sure it would get to Santa, then racing home from school, or maybe waking up extra early to hear Santa Clause read your letter live on WISL Radio.
The program was "Letters To Santa"...

In the 1980's WISL was under new ownership and a new marketing campaign was underway. The "I WISL in my car" campaign invited listeners to stop at various advertising businesses (a.k.a. "Listening Posts") in the Shamokin and Mount Carmel area and pick up a bumper sticker. Listeners were encouraged to proudly display the sticker on their car for a chance to win various prized as would be announced on WISL Radio.
In this exhibit, we present one of the posters that each "Listening Post" would display, along with one of the bumper stickers listeners would pick up.

When WISL radio signed on in 1948 there was quite a bit of money up for grabs in the Shamokin area. Independence Street was full of businesses, local jobs gave residents money to spend and WISL had the medium that could bring the consumer to the stores. WISL did not just target the local advertising market, they also looked to the national advertisers for revenue opportunities. However, being a fledgling station, WISL had to advertise itself to the advertisers, otherwise known as the agency advertising buyers.
Our featured exhibit is one of the print ads featured in Broadcasting Magazine during...

In August of 1964, WISL radio and Shamokin were catching their piece of the national spotlight, (well at least on some level), in the pages of a well known teen magazine. That summer Teen Life Magazine brought their traveling record hop parade to town, just in time for Shamokin's 150th anniversary celebration. Teen Life Magazine had their own DJ, "cleverly" named T.J. who traveled from town to town across the United States hosting record hops, many times bringing a music star or two with him.
This time, it was Shamokin's turn. Along with SMASH Records A&R man Doug Moody, T.J. met T.K,...